Children's protection bill condemned

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Non-governmental organization activists harshly criticized the bill on children's protection being deliberated by the House of Representatives for what they claimed was a lack of details, vague sanctions and an absence of a watchdog committee.

Bambang Budi Setiawan of the Indonesian Child Welfare Foundation, said that the House seemed to be in a hurry in composing the bill, which resulted in a less than comprehensive law.

Indonesia ratified the UN Convention on Child Protection in 1990.

"I know that the deadline is tight but the bill must be made stronger for the sake of children, not for some groups or political parties," he told The Jakarta Post.

The bill is expected to be passed into law on July 17 to commemorate National Children's Day on July 23.

Separately, the National Committee for Child Protection secretary general Aris Merdeka Sirait said that he suspected the bill reeked of political interference at it ignored the establishment of a national committee for children's rights.

"I am convinced that the bill is only a paper tiger, because the rules are not feasible," he told the Post.

Both Aris and Bambang said that in the late 1990s, some NGOs submitted a similar draft on children's protection that was much more comprehensive, feasible and reliable than the current bill.

Aris said that the bill would not give clear sanctions to the government when it failed to provide public facilities for children to play, especially in residential areas.

He said that the law should impose a punishment of at least five years in jail to parents who pushed children to work as TV stars late at night and "severe" sanctions to parents who forced children to study more than four hours a day.

They agreed that the establishment of a national committee for children's rights, a watchdog body for law implementation, was at least one crucial point that was missing from the current bill.

"The committee needs to be set up to control whether the policy makers violate the law and to report to international organizations about the progress of child protection in Indonesia," Bambang said.